Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Last week was all over the bookworm place. I had the sweetest book hangover that I did not want to get over; revisited a lifelong favorite; stalled and stumbled around in a novel that I read a long time ago, according to my 1990s book journal; meandered into a sequel without reading the prequel; flung myself with abandon into a new and promisingly scrumptious read; and flung (with a curse) a 1950s classic(???) as far as I could without getting myself thrown out of the county library.

No, it didn't all happen in this order. Yes, I am fond of the word "flung".

Sweetest book hangover:Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. I loved this book so hard that I both audiobooked and printed-paged it. Can't remember exactly what I said in my last blog post, but double that. I'm in awe: How did Towles convey through prose, the satiny, silvery effect of old movies while making 1938 feel as immediate as 2017? New York! Walker Evans! The days are just packed; I have tons of new things to feel obsessive about.

A lifelong favorite:
Recently, I bought the 50th anniversary edition of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I don't recall when I first read this book. Sixth grade? Seventh grade? I remember the mod-looking cover where the greasers are looking tough (and tuff), slouching and leaning nonchalantly on one another's shoulders. Not a big fan of the movie when it finally came out. Tom Cruise as Two-Bit? Noooooo. What struck me during this reread? I didn't remember the fever pitch of emotion that permeates the novel. Sandy, Sodapop's girlfriend is sent away to live with her grandmother when she turns up pregnant -- that went right over my head during my first few readings. DX gas stations! Full service! Times have changed. I felt much more empathy for Darry, Ponyboy's oldest brother, who is trying to keep the family together since their parents were killed in a car wreck. Otherwise, everything was the same: Cherry Valance still annoyed me, Johnny and Dally broke my heart, Two-Bit made me laugh, and Ponyboy? He digs okay.

Stalled and stumbled around:
I started Clockers by Richard Price a few weeks ago, but I'm having trouble getting into it. The novel seemed familiar, so I rummaged back through my first book journal, and there it was, one of the first books of 1994. Not ready to give up on it yet -- the cadences of the novel are jumpy and jerky, much like its urban setting, and I can't settle in, but I will. It's good.

Flung myself with abandon:
After Rules of Civility, I became a one-track bookworm. Happily, Amor Towles published Rules back in 2011, which means that enough time had elapsed for him to craft another treasure, which I promptly found: A Gentleman in Moscow (2016) takes place in Russia, 1922. Count Alexander Rostov has written a poem that has put the Bolsheviks' noses out of joint. Instead of execution, he is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel. I've only just started this novel, and I want to be put on house arrest with lots of coffee and sandwiches and chocolate while I read uninterrupted. So far, no luck on that part. Oh, come on, world! I've been a bad, bad girl!

Meandered into a sequel:
For my audiobook, I'm listening to Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo. At first, I was having some trouble getting into the story and feeling as if I should have read Nobody'sFool first. This is not my first outing with Russo. I read The Risk Pool, which didn't excite me, and Pulitzer Prize-winning Empire Falls, which I did like. Russo is like the male Anne Tyler: quirky characters, strange situations against the backdrop of everyday life and the bigger questions about life, love, suffering and death. I'm on disc 4 and finally settling in. Hell, I may go on a Richard Russo binge read.

Flung with a curse:
I haven't flung a book since I hurled Atlas Shrugged out of a window back in 2005 in Korea! The projectile in question this time was Marjorie Morningstar, a 1955 novel by Herman Wouk. For a few days after, all I could say was: "Umm, no. Hell no." The book may be a brilliant snapshot of New York in the early 1930s, but Herman Wouk is a bit tone-deaf, writing from the female point of view. When the male characters are given voice, they're just cringe-y. Milton Schwartz needs to be hung out on the line with Angel Clare. I thought this book might be a classic, finely aged like wine or cheese, but it's aged badly -- more like dairy or vegetables. I cursed and flung and I'll never be sorry.